Sports Watch
SO much for the Senior Walk. It was more like the Freshman Run. ’Bows need something
to sell recruitsThirteen University of Hawaii seniors ended their football careers Saturday night at Aloha Stadium. But a visiting freshman running back named Ron Dayne stole their alohas.
Boy, did he ever.
Apparently, they don't call him the"Great Dayne" for nothing. He barged for 339 yards and four touchdowns in leading Wisconsin to a 59-10 rout of the Rainbows that proved a fitting closure to their worst season in history.
Dayne set a bunch of records but he could have had one for all-time - easily surpassing the NCAA record of 396 rushing yards in a game - if his coach hadn't sat him down the entire fourth quarter.
Thankfully, this Barry was named Alvarez not Switzer. Unlike the latter, Alvarez had no thoughts about his son, your son or anybody's son breaking a record for record's sake.
"The game was out of reach so there was no reason to leave him in," Alvarez said. "I think records should be broken in the context of the game."
And a game it wasn't. It was a contest between men and boys and showed how far the Rainbows have fallen in Division I competition. In two previous meetings, they beat the Badgers, 20-17, in 1986 and lost, 28-7, the following year at Wisconsin.
But, in Saturday night's humiliating loss, Alvarez told Hawaii coach Fred vonAppen that the Rainbows were "helpless" in stopping his team.
IT proved to be a fitting closure to an interminable season that saw the 'Bows hit rock bottom - losing 10 games for the first time and allowing the most points (433).
When vonAppen took over for Bob Wagner, who was summarily fired after nine years as head coach, no one had any great expectations about the transition season. But few UH fans thought it would be this bad.
So what now for the Rainbows in 1997, with a schedule that calls for opening with Minnesota and closing with Notre Dame?
As far as vonAppen is concerned, the football is in the UH administration's end of the field. He doesn't want to keep harping on the subject, but he says Hawaii can't go around playing teams like Wisconsin without having a stronger commitment to its football program.
"These guys were way too much for our guys. We were way overmatched," vonAppen said. He doesn't see the Rainbows ever playing on the same level field if there's no total buy-in by everyone, from the administration on down.
"I don't want to get into that. I've been hammered for repeatedly speaking out. But you don't problem-solve if you don't speak out," he said.
UNDER the existing athletic philosophy, vonAppen doesn't see the Rainbows ever being competitive.
"You can fire the coach and get another guy and he's going to say the same thing. He may be more diplomatic. He may couch it a little bit. But he'll basically want the same thing.
"If you've seen Wisconsin's facilities and what they look like in comparison to us, you might say, well, but they're in the Big Ten. But then why in the hell are we playing them if we're not going to get up to speed with them? Because we can't recruit guys like what they've got.
"We're simply not as skilled or physical as a lot of people we play. How are you going to get that way? You're going to have to recruit. How are you going to recruit? You have to have something to sell compared to what your opponents are selling."
VonAppen isn't about to throw up his hands in despair.
"I'm going to work hard to affect change. But I don't want to go through another season like this. Still, I'm not used to not doing something until the job's done, either."